Alice Zhang is the CEO and co-founder of Verge Genomics.
I founded my biotech company, Verge Genomics, after graduating from graduate school in 2015. We use artificial intelligence to solve some of the biggest unsolved medical problems today, including ALS, Parkinson’s disease and metabolic diseases.
In the early days of the company, I was told that “scientists can’t run companies” or “to become a CEO, you need drug development experience.” But it was my naivety that allowed me to create a different type of culture that allowed us to innovate faster and embrace technology deeper.
At Verge, we’ve become obsessed with creating a conscious culture that chooses authenticity over fear. For us, a great workplace means focusing all our energy on meaningful work with great colleagues, rather than getting caught up in drama. As one Verge scientist told his manager, “I can do good science anywhere, but the Verge is the only place where I can practice conscious culture.”
frankness
This may seem like an exaggeration to some, but most corporate cultures are gripped by fear: the fear of losing control of the outcome, looking stupid, or being judged. This causes people to think that it is “not normal” to express their deepest judgments, beliefs and emotions that naturally arise in any relationship. Instead, they hide their true feelings, withdraw from the other person, and find evidence to support their beliefs.
Retention creates serious problems for teams. Relevant information has not been disclosed. The best decisions are not made. Once decisions are made, people are not fully aligned, leading to “meeting after meeting.” Most importantly, when people abstain, it drains their energy and creativity. They may start venting to each other to avoid conflict. This costs them deep, authentic connections with each other, as relationships between people become increasingly superficial.
At the Verge, we prefer candor and vulnerability over secrecy. We practice revealing our inner stories, emotions, judgments – not because we think we are right, but because we want to return to connection with each other.
Five years ago, Verge was going through some tough times. Employee morale was at an all-time low; people were leaving. I tried different solutions to improve morale, but each one seemed to make the situation worse. Exhausted and beaten, I stood up at the next company meeting and spoke from my heart.
“I feel heartbroken and scared,” I said, tears streaming down my face. “This is my first time going through this and I feel like I let you down. Usually I have all the solutions, but I need your help.” I thought everyone would leave because the CEO had to be strong and have all the answers. Instead, employees pulled together and came up with solutions. We revamped our meetings to better communicate internally and brought in external support to help us clearly articulate our mission, vision and values. I’ve learned that effective leadership doesn’t have to look like you’re slamming your number one on the table or constantly telling everyone that you put up with him all the time. Sometimes the most powerful and lasting way to motivate yourself is to simply be vulnerable.
Radical Responsibility
Blame is another way fear manifests itself in corporate culture. Blame is a powerful motivator. When things don’t go the way we think they should and we get stuck in fear, we start blaming ourselves, others, or the system. People begin to perceive things as being “done for them” or may take on more than their share of responsibility to avoid conflict. We’ve all been there: Scientists can blame financiers for not understanding what’s important. Finance can blame engineers for not caring about our profits. “Management” is accused of lack of transparency. The system is accused of creating meaningless rules.
At Verge, everyone takes responsibility for what happens. Responsibility is not assigned, it is assumed. By joining Verge, you take full responsibility for the circumstances of your work. There are no “problems” to blame people for, only learning opportunities. Based on this mindset, scientists take responsibility and speak up about their needs earlier. The finance department takes responsibility for communicating to the company what is important to the business. Management is finding ways to communicate more clearly and proactively, and administrators are committing to listening more and legislating less. When teams stop blaming and see themselves as fully empowered, real breakthroughs happen and teams work more skillfully and effectively.
In a traditional corporate environment, admitting emotions like fear and anxiety is seen as hysterical or crazy, especially for women. But at Verge, giving people the opportunity to better understand themselves and face their fears led them to place less blame on others. When we are free from the urge to blame others for the emotions that bubble up within us, we can correct those things within ourselves. This has made Verge a company with minimal drama and minimal office politics.
Why is this important for doing business? Unnecessary energy is wasted in the workplace when we suppress our feelings or create overwork drama out of guilt. When we release this energy, we can reinvest it in the things that matter: innovation and science. When we get to the root cause of the problem, instead of looking for temporary relief, we can find more effective and permanent changes. In procedural work, the best teams are only 2 times better than the average ones. The best are 10 times better at inventive work. In industries such as biotechnology, where innovation is the lifeblood of growth, great importance is placed on creative, efficient teams at the highest levels.
At the Verge, our employee engagement score, which measures how motivated people are to promote and stay with the company, ranks us in the top 10% of companies in the United States in our latest study. Gallup poll US employees. Our attrition rate is nearly half the industry average, and the majority of our leadership team is still employed by the company. And today, we are one of the few AI drug discovery companies to have developed a cure. from platform to clinical trials entirely in-house, at one-quarter the cost of developing traditional medicines.
Is this causation or correlation? It’s difficult to determine exactly. If I had known about all the complex technological challenges and ingrained biases that I would have had to overcome, including compared to Elizabeth Holmes simply because I am a woman scientist may have made me think twice about starting Verge. But looking back, I realize that my naivety was actually my greatest asset. This allowed me to unwittingly create a radically different culture that allowed scientific discovery to flourish and potentially create a better future for patients.
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